How to get kids to pay attention • Hacker News Board

Re: How to get kids to pay attention

#231

Post by grasshopperpurp » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #77

lgregg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate, I was born/grew up overseas and was raised this way before my parents moved back to the states. I moved back with them, and it was surprising how little my friends had in life skills. I had learned to cook (from watching/learning) already and would cook for myself after school for example, while most of my friends would have zero ideas on what to do. It's sad how the U.S. Government prevents native Amer…

Not really sure about your terms here, you seem to be glorifying individualism in practice, but blaming it in name? What could be more individualistic than doing something on your own?

This reply, a little further up, should clarify the OP's point.

https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=17437151&goto=item%3Fi...

Re: How to get kids to pay attention

#232

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 1:35 PM UTC

rejschaap wrote: post #200

unit91 wrote: post #109

I have 6 kids, and I've found it's pretty simple to get kids to pay attention (or anything else). Be consistent, and willing to discipline if necessary. Here's the order I follow: 1. Polite request 2. Polite command 3. Stern command 4. Warning 5. Push-ups 6. Spanking They know I love them and because of that love obedience is required. Situations rarely escalate past step 2, and step 6 is memorable. ETA: for anything…

Just curious, who does the push-ups? Do you do them yourself in an attempt to manage your anger? Or is it some kind of punishment?

[deleted]

Re: How to get kids to pay attention

#233

Post by s-shellfish » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 1:49 PM UTC

rimliu wrote: post #229

s-shellfish wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have to call it an addiction? A video game is an immersive experience that allows an individual to effectively sync into a state of flow detached from reality. If reality is chaotic and stressful and reinforces that sentiment from all directions to yield those internal feelings of agony, it seems obvious that anything that can alleviate such agony would be immediately ran to. Better to be addicted to video game…

> Better to be addicted to video games than heroin, right? Only in terms of your physical health. Otherwise iirc addiction is defined as having negative effect on your life (work, social, personal) so it is as bad. > At least video games can teach modular reasoning. Which will be used only for games, because you are not interested in anything else?

> Which will be used only for games, because you are not interested in anything else?

Or programming, having a job you have passion for and are good at, being able to produce work people see value in, sustaining yourself, you know, not living in a gutter and stuff dying of a heroin overdose?

> Only in terms of your physical health. Otherwise iirc addiction is defined as having negative effect on your life (work, social, personal) so it is as bad.

Well, if you love video games and everyone around you hates video games, and thinks video games are as bad as heroin, I could see how that could have a negative effect on your work, social, and personal life.

Re: How to get kids to pay attention

#234

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

icc97 wrote: post #159

> "Of course she can go shopping," Tun Burgos says. "She can buy some eggs or tomatoes for us. She knows the way and how to stay out of traffic." I wonder how much this has to do with the value of child life. What are the statistics of Mayan children being run over / kidnapped? I can't imagine it's somehow safer in Mexico, just somehow parents are more willing / less informed to take this risk.

> I can't imagine it's somehow safer in Mexico

It's far less safe in Mexico than in the US, though it's probably still safer in Mexico than Americans perceive it to be in the US.

> just somehow parents are more willing / less informed to take this risk.

You seem to presume Americans are well informed here; they are not. They consistently vastly overestimate the current risk and incorrectly perceive it as increasing when statistics does it is decreasing. Mexicans could be more willing to let their kids out because they are better informed (at least, have a more accurate perception of the risks) rather than less informed.

Re: How to get kids to pay attention

#235

Post by cowpewter » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 2:29 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #216

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but I read it as prohibition of the autonomy (of children by today's culture) that they used to have. I can relate, as a child I was expected to be self-sufficient in a way that would be unrecognisable to modern children. Rather than being ferried by car to the school, and taxied to a series of child appointments, I walked to school alone or with friends. That including crossing a 4 lane highway, at the lights…

When playing out I was often told not to come back until dinner, so we'd go off and do stuff. When I try that with my daughter there is a 97% chance she'll end up at a friends house playing Minecraft or something similar (or she'll just end up in her room playing computer games). Personally I don't think the problem is so much that we don't let kids out, rather that there are so many other, screen based, things compe…

This isn't new though. It might just be that she's an introvert. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and I had the freedom to go pretty much where I pleased, and where I pleased was in my room with a book, or copying programs out of books for my TRS-80, or playing with my GameBoy. That's pretty equivalent, I think. As I got older and had even more freedom with a bike, I usually wound up at a friend's house playing D&D.

Re: How to get kids to pay attention

#236

Post by semi-extrinsic » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #213

jinfiesto wrote: post #143

I often wonder whether this has a lot to do with how we treat our kids. I often catch myself acting uninterested in my daughter's interests (she's two and often wants to show me things for the 50th time that were pretty boring in the first place.) She doesn't have any attention or behavioral issues in general, but I was amazed when a friend of mine came to visit who is an early music educator. They didn't do anything…

An indirect way of encouraging this is including kids in what you are doing, as opposed to engineering activities for them. A lot of kids' world these days is an artificial reality, made for them. School, soccer, art class, play dates. The reason the activity exists is to give kids an experience. We're not interested in it, because it's kid stuff. When I was a kid, some of the most formative activities were fishing,…

1. Go to Home Depot or similar.

2. Buy a small hammer, a box of brad nails, and raid the wood cutoff container. Total cost $20.

3. Give these things to your kid.

4. ???

5. Profit

Re: How to get kids to pay attention

#237

Post by monocasa » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 2:54 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #135

wrycoder wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The last few years I cleaned toilets for a living, but I decided that sucked, so this year I'm a project lead at Google." I'll bet there are trash collectors that earn more than commercial pilots on second tier carriers.

Wasn't that myth debunked since it essentially happened to only a bunch of guys in NY ?

I personally know a small group of second tier pilots that only get paid peanuts. Something like $40k/yr, and unlike cleaners, they're mandated by a federal agency with teeth not to take a bunch of overtime.

Re: How to get kids to pay attention

#238

Post by naasking » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 2:59 PM UTC

panic wrote: post #214

NLips wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The research is pretty poor. The main problem is that all physical punishment is landed into a single pot, but there is clearly a world of difference slapping a fifteen year old in the face and slapping the bottom of a four year old. See here for a useful meta-analysis: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10567-005-2340-z

Many people who hit kids aren't making fine distinctions like that. The whole point of the research is to address the general practice.

If the general practice can be effective depending on fine distinctions, and if such fine distinctions exist, then they matter. General advice like given above is then just bad advice.

Re: How to get kids to pay attention

#239

Post by jpadkins » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

Control-F 'montessori' ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education

The conclusions are not new. Maria Montessori researched this 100 years ago.

- Student choice of activity from within a prescribed range of options. - Uninterrupted blocks of work time, ideally three hours. - A constructivist or "discovery" model, where students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct instruction. -

Re: How to get kids to pay attention

#240

Post by durandal1 » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 3:25 PM UTC

geomark wrote: post #178

s4vi0r wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't spank your kids. It has no benefit, and many negative effects.

Indeed. I was spanked as a child (I was very stubborn and looking back it's clear that nothing else really worked with me). As a result, I suffer from a condition known as respect for others. It's a terrible affliction to have in this day and age.

How did spanking lead to respect for others? Are you afraid other people might physically hurt you if you don't "respect" them? Or does adverse interactions bring up the childhood memories of being spanked? In genuinely curious how this works? (I grew up in a country where spanking and all other physical abuse of children is illegal)